Falling
by SoManyStars
Summary: Just Loki, and a glimpse into all the times he's fallen. Spans from Pre-Thor to Infinity War. One-shot.


_**A/N: Title is mostly literal, plus a few metaphorical bits. Inspired by the song below, and by sleep deprivation. :P**_

_**I don't own the song or Marvel.**_

_"__Sometimes I wish for falling, wish for the release_  
_Wish for falling through the air to give me some relief_  
_Because falling's not the problem, when I'm falling I'm at peace_  
_It's only when I hit the ground it causes all the grief"_

-Florence + The Machine, "Falling"

* * *

Loki shuffled down the path beside Thor, following in Father's wake as he parted the sea of Asgardians. Mother's long buttery gown whispered in the breeze, so he snatched a hand out to still it, clinging to her. All he could see through the legs and arms was Father's blood red cape and burnished armor, commanding attention like the distant sun, out of reach. Thor was a miniature relic of him, golden hair unkempt but still glinting, little chin held high and proud. Loki tried to lengthen his strides to match Thor's, maybe make them more graceful like Mother's, or—

His foot suddenly snagged on a stray chunk of marble. Mother was whisked from his grasp as he plummeted downward, landing on all fours with his kneecaps clanging against the stone. Tears began to well in his eyes as he lifted his head and realized that their figures were still marching forth, no one had noticed, they were leaving—

From beside him, Thor jutted out a grubby hand.

_Brother._

Loki's lips tugged gratefully. He grabbed his brother's hand, and they trotted ahead together, towards the fleeting, perfect little warmth of their family.

_His family._

* * *

Loki perched upon the great golden throne, boring his gaze into the Warriors Three and Sif.

Watching them squirm in frustration, because _he_ was King now.

_—you could never have a Frost Giant sitting on the Throne of Asgard—_

When he stood, he towered over them from the stairs, Gungnir warming his fingers with a silver shred of proof. His horned helmet fit snugly on his head, as resplendent as ever.

They spoke, he denied them. Made his kingly commands. Stared after their retreating backs, the very image of power.

...So why didn't he feel as such?

Why did he have to keep planting his feet to make sure he didn't slip through the floor?

Down to the cellar, the treasure room, the dungeons.

_Because your fingers are really blue, your head is really blue. A monster._

The rug had been torn from underneath his feet and sent him flying. Now, his helmet grabbed desperately at his skull, but his mind was still hurtling, he was still flailing, screaming, spinning—

_No_, he was going to prove himself.

He tightened his grip on the staff.

* * *

He was falling, falling, falling.

Everything hurt, ached like the darkness was poisoning his veins. He wondered if that's why he couldn't feel. Why he fell, floated, inch by inch.

The black Void clung to him, so tight he couldn't remember if his eyes were closed.

He couldn't remember much.

Could he?

_I could have done it, Father, for you—_

He had fallen off the Bridge once, when he had been young. But even that had been a trick.

_Don't do that! I thought you were dead!_

_Okay, okay, I won't._

Flashes of light shot past. Burned his skin, bounced him off rocks and solid blackness like he was nothing, but he was numb now. He couldn't feel it, no matter how much he wished he could.

_Brother?_

Did he wish he could?

His arm was blue in the brief glare.

—_for all of us..._

It was easier to just let the darkness speak. To just fall.

He closed his eyes again, but it made no difference.

* * *

Thor wrenched him up by the neck, growling, and leapt backwards out of the Quinjet.

Loki hadn't seen that face for over a year, except for in dreams, in snarling nightmares on cold stone floors. How fitting it was, that the first expression on his _fake_ brother's face upon their reunion was one of fury. Of that classic, broad-shouldered anger.

He wondered if there was hatred there, too. Probably.

_—you, tossing me into an abyss—_

The wind whipped at his face, as though Thor's iron grip wasn't enough. Loki could tell, just by the pressure of his fingers, how the words would come pouring from his mouth once they landed. Sharp, bitter, dark. But not relieved.

_Did you mourn?_

Because Thor had cried for the Bifrost, and for his mortal. The others—the Warriors and Sif, Odin, the palace—had cried for his sadnesses.

But Thor had not cried for his poisonous mistakes, for _his little brother,_ Loki knew. He had seen.

He slammed into hard black dust, earth that stabbed him in the back like thousands of his own knives. Or perhaps they were pinpricks of his Staff, or that of Thor's murderous ice-pick eyes.

_I missed you, too._

He only laughed.

* * *

Thor shoved him hard in the chest, cutting off his words as they rose to fill the Dark Elves' ship. Loki didn't realize that there was no ground left behind him until he was falling.

_Again._

Odin would probably say he deserved it, that it was his _birthright._

He was chained up this time, too, so that if he hit the waves, he wouldn't be able to escape the water in his lungs. Perhaps that was on purpose. Or perhaps it was something of a sign—he'd die before he'd ever fight beside Thor again.

Well, he wasn't fighting for Thor's pleasure, anyway.

_Am I not your Mother?_

_You're not._

Maybe his guilt alone would be enough for him to sink to the bottom.

But he had to remain alive, at least until Svartalfheim. He would carve that monster's heart from its body, crumple every fiber of its being until the claws that had slain her were not even memories.

Thor would watch, and rage, and fret over the mortal. Maybe he'd even help, though Loki didn't particularly need it and certainly wasn't expecting it.

He could barely remember the last time they had helped one another, apart from their recent truce.

_You must be truly desperate to come to me for help._

_Brother._

His spine collided with something silvery and metal, instead of ocean. He glanced up to find Thor soaring down after him.

_I didn't do it for—_

His shackles rattled like enraged thunderclouds as he climbed to his feet.

* * *

It wasn't quite like the Void this time.

For one, as chaotic as they were, the bursts of light and dark and color were _real_, like heavy woolen blankets dragging against his skin. He was falling, and _fast_, but at least he existed.

Though this was already becoming tedious—he'd been falling for twenty-two minutes, thirty-four seconds, if his habitual counting was correct. He would've tried to tear a rift in the fabric with his magic, but that hadn't worked the first time, and he didn't expect it to now.

He wondered if it was Odin who had decided to grant him with such a punishment. If he had broken free from his spell and realized all that he had been ripped from, all that he had left behind. If his pale eye still looked and acted like a cutting ice blast.

_I love you, my sons._

Loki shot through an endless stream of strange dimensions. He thought he caught a glimpse of Odin's leather eyepiece, or his brother's sun-bright blond hair, but when he glanced back again, the dark was still solid and unbroken.

Because both Thor and Odin were still in a different existence, far away from him.

_—our paths diverged a long time ago—_

Loki wondered if that bothered him. He wondered if Thor was still waiting for him, or if he had gone to search for his father alone.

_It's probably for the best that we never see each other again._

Twenty-eight-and-a-half minutes. And all he could do was depend on something he knew nothing of, and wait for the ground to show its face again.

He wondered if he was ever going to actually _get out of here._

Thirty minutes, exactly.

With a hiss of surprise, the sparking orange ring reopened to spit him back towards home.

* * *

Everything swam with blue and black.

The golden Gauntlet glittered feverishly before him. Fiery pain spidered through his spine, through every insignificant splinter of bone in his body, as though trying to make certain that he would die this time. The sour tang of blood, the way it seemed to spill into every part of him, was all so _different_ than it had ever been in the past.

He could feel the heat of Thor watching him, could almost taste the bleak despair. His single steel-blue eye was so bright it could've lit the whole ship on fire.

Loki was teetering on the edge, and his throat was tightening. He hoped Thor had learned at least something from him and could read the thoughts in his eyes, because he could no longer speak them himself.

_The sun will shine on us again._

At least Thor knew that. At least Thor knew the other one, too, the sometimes unspoken but implied one—

_Brother._

Loki felt the warmth increase, but it wasn't blood or tears or pain. It was almost like an embrace, of familiar hands and familiar voices, ones that numbed him in a completely different way than he'd ever been in the Void.

Maybe, just this once, he'd be okay with dropping off the edge.

Then the hand of Death finally released him, and something like a body hit the ashes, but he kept falling. Down or up, he couldn't tell, and he couldn't really care.

He fell for them, as he had intended in the first place, a long, long time ago.

_His family._


End file.
